If North Korea Fires, Should Obama Just Keep Cool?

The fixation on global economic distress may have to take a back seat this weekend to another uncomfortable story: North Korea’s launching of a ballistic missile that will raise more questions about the kind of nuclear threat it could pose one day.

And if the testing happens, the question immediately will become: What should President Barack Obama do about it? He will have plenty of people suggesting he respond one way or the other, but at least one foreign-policy analyst with friends in the Obama administration is advising something else: Keep your cool.

The North Koreans have been signaling for weeks that a test is coming, and preparations on the ground suggest it could be coming Saturday.

In anticipation, President Obama warned in a press conference in Europe on Friday that he’s prepared to respond—somehow. “Should North Korea decide to take this action, we will work…to take appropriate steps to let North Korea know that it can’t threaten the safety and security of other countries with impunity,” Mr. Obama said.

Michael E. O’Hanlon, a foreign-policy analyst at the Brookings Institution says the president should dismiss suggestions that the U.S. try to shoot down the missile—and most other proposed reactions as well. In a piece posted on Brookings’ web site, and published earlier on Politico, he writes: “Such a reaction would be a mistake at this juncture. So would less extreme steps, such as an effort to propose a significant tightening of U.N. sanctions against the North Korean regime. The Obama administration, still establishing itself in office and without some of its top Asia hands yet in place, may feel excessive pressure to act tough after such an event, but it should be patient for now.”